After my fisk of Kevin Fagin’s San Francisco Chronicle op-ed of a couple of days ago, I find a link to a related piece at Pro-Gun Progressive, a site I was previously unaware of, via Firehand of Irons in the Fire (who I really need to read more often.) It’s about comparing the murder rate in the U.S. against other nations. Excerpt:
(I)f you unpack the other half of the anti-gunners’ “America is too violent compared to the rest of the world” argument, you might be surprised to learn that they’re not right there either.
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Not only is the US ranked behind 23 other countries, there are several EU and CIS nations that have higher murder rates than we do. So much for the idea that violence in the US is somehow a uniquely American pandemic. While I certainly don’t mean to make light of the fact that the US has a violence problem, I do intend to confront head-on the fanciful notion that we’re violent because we have guns and the rest of the world carries on a hunkey-dorey existence thanks to the absence of objects that fire projectiles.
Which is precisely the argument Mr. Fagin was making. It’s a good short piece with good links. Wish I’d seen it a couple of days ago.